MERMEC technology breaks a new record

February 9, 2009

Bologna, ITALY - It was announced that an ETR 500 train of "Ferrovie dello Stato" (Italian National Operator) "Frecciarossa" equipped with MERMEC measuring systems, broke the Italian speed record.

It was announced that the speed record was broken on the new high-speed Bologna-Firenze line recording speeds of 362 Km/h.

It is actually a record within a record. The business structure behind this important result is completely Italian: starting from the FS Group who guided the infrastructural project development, to TREVI consortium who built ETR train, and finally arriving to MERMEC Group that provided products and services for diagnostic activities and high-speed line certification.

In the phase before the commercial opening of the lines, the speed tests are, in fact, useful to certify correctness of rail track and correspond with the technical requirements forecasted from all the rail equipment. The most important feature of this ETR 500 train is that it not only breaks the speed record but, overall, simulates the rail infrastructure in real operational conditions, analyzing behavior and certifying the correctness and specific needs of the project.

Two aspects of particular attention by the MERMEC diagnostic systems installed onboard of the “Frecciarossa” train: the ride quality and the interaction between pantograph and catenary.

The ride quality is measured with particular MERMEC diagnostic systems that look at accelerations and evaluates the quality of train/rail interaction and the effects of the ride quality on passenger comfort onboard. Thanks to the long partnership between MERMEC and "Ferrovie dello Stato", the speed test was a success and the MERMEC systems onboard once again demonstrated their reliability.

The MERMEC Group’s vast experience in designing and developing monitoring systems for high-speed trains has resulted in 6 of the 8 high-speed test trains in the world being equipped with MERMEC technologies.

On September 2007, the ETR 500 train of the FS fleet, equipped with MERMEC systems, was used for certification by the Turkish Operator TCDD for the new high-speed Istanbul-Ankara line. Also, in this case, a record was achieved during a line test where the train reached a speed of 303 Km/h - the fastest recorded speed in the Middle East.